Betoi (Betoy) or Betoi-Jirara is an extinct language of Colombia and Venezuela, south of the Apure River near the modern border with Colombia. The names Betoi and Jirara are those of two of its peoples/dialects; the language proper has no known name. At contact, Betoi was a local lingua franca spoken between the Uribante and Sarare rivers and along the Arauca. Enough was recorded for a brief grammatical monograph to be written (Zamponi 2003).
Classification
Betoi is generally seen as an isolate, though Kaufman (2007) included it in Macro-Paesan.
Zamponi (2017) finds enough lexical resemblances between Betoi and the Saliban languages to conclude that a genealogical relationship is plausible.[1]
Varieties
Historically a dialect cluster, varieties include Betoi, Jirara, Situfa, Ayrico, Ele, Lucalia, Jabúe, Arauca, Quilifay, Anabali, Lolaca, and Atabaca.[2]
Below is a full list of Betoi varieties listed by Loukotka (1968), including names of unattested varieties.[3]
Situfa / Cituja - extinct language once spoken on the Casanare River in the Arauca region.
Airico - once spoken at the sources of the Manacacías River. (Gumilla 1745, pt. 2, pp. 243-247, only a few words.)
Jirara - spoken once in the upper Manacacías River region. (Gumilla 1745, pt. 1, pp. 201 and 203, pt. 2, pp. 16 and 328, only a few words and phrases.)
Atabaca - once spoken in the upper Manacacías River region. (Gumilla 1745, pt. 2, p. 274, only a few words.)
Lolaca - once spoken on the confluence of the Arauca River and Chitagá River. (Unattested.)
Quilifay - once spoken around the confluence of the Arauca River and Chitagá River. (Unattested.)
Anabali - spoken south of the Atabaca tribe around the confluence of the Arauca River and Chitagá River. (Unattested.)
what, which, that (sg. n.) (interrogative and relative)
majaduca
what
day
= ‘how, ?how much’
Other parts of speech
English gloss
Betoi
Notes
this
-ducá
demonstrative clitic?
white
cocosiajo
sweet
olisa
bad
fofei, fofej, fofey
wise, prudent
culasa
other
ed-, sg. edoi, pl. edolatu
next, coming
edasu
one
edojojoi
two
edoi
= ‘other’
three
ibutú
= ‘and’
four
ibutú-edojojoi
lit. ‘and/three one’
five
rumucoso
lit. ‘my hand’
many
maitolá
all
-numa, sg. bagenuma, pl. bolanuma
how much
daitolá
pl.
above
ubo
inside
toli
and
ibutú
but
uita
because
day
as
oanu
= ‘the same one’
no
ebamucá
true!
tugaday
how did this happen?
day día qué
day = ‘what, how, ?how much’; día ‘where’, -qué = ‘interrogative’
excl. of wonder
ayaddi
excl. of admiration
ódique
excl. of desire and uncertainty
odijá
excl. of fear
odifarracá
excl. of grief
ai asidí
interrogative marker
-qué
day = ‘what, how, ?how much’; -qué = ‘interrogative’
tag-question marker
dayqué
moreover
farrocafada, farrocafeda
References
^Zamponi, Raoul (2017). Betoi-Jirara, Sáliban, and Hod i: Relationships among Three Linguistic Lineages of the Mid-Orinoco Region. Anthropological Linguistics, Volume 59, Number 3, Fall 2017, pp. 263-321.
^Epps, Patience; Michael, Lev, eds. (2023). Amazonian Languages: Language Isolates. Volume I: Aikanã to Kandozi-Chapra. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN978-3-11-041940-5.
